Re-Entry: Long March 3B Rocket Body

A Long March 3B rocket stage re-entered the atmosphere on January 15, 2016 after three months in orbit, making a slow decay from a highly elliptical Geostationary Transfer Orbit. The Long March 3B rocket launched the Apstar-9 communications satellite.

The re-entry of the Long March 3B Rocket Stage was observed from Chile and Bolivia at 5:53-5:54 UTC on January 15, providing a perfect match in terms of timing and geographic location.

A number of videos were uploaded to YouTube and local newspapers picked up on the fireball observation which showed the typical slow speed of artificial object re-entries and the characteristic fragmentation of a rocket body, highlighted by dense components such as engines and pressurant tanks pulling out in front of the principal debris cloud.